Birthday day out

For my birthday, back in the Easter Holidays, Amelia and I took a little jaunt to the Lake District to catch the World of Wool exhibition at Rheged.  Rheged is a strange beast, kind of a glorified service station, with shops selling lovely little things by local and national designer/maker types (including the lovely Julia Smith Ceramics), a soft play centre and outdoor play area (a lovely surprise on arrival) and a few different coffee bars.  There's some office/meeting space and also a huge exhibition space on the top floor.  It looks a bit hobbity from the outside, too.

As well as having been keen on visiting the exhibition for a while, we also had some friends in town from overseas with their new baby, so it was definitely worth the trip!

After an hour or so in the soft play, making friends and riding foam horses, Amelia seemed to enjoy it too. 

Amelia doing incredibly well not to touch the lovely tactile display

I didn't get to take photos of everything, what with the child wrangling and the don't touch policy, but my favourite part of the exhibition were the handmade houses with stories of the inhabitants.  I love the idea of building a whole new world out of just needles, yarn and imagination.  There's a pun about spinning a good yarn in there, I'm sure, but let's just gloss over that...

Some well known names like Emily Peacock and Donna Wilson were on display, alongside more local and less well known exhibitors.  Sadly the exhibition finished last week so I can't tell you all to go and see it.  Unfortunately, since I got my iPad and traded in my laptop, blogging has become more of a challenge, so hopefully someone can improve the blogger app soon and I'll get back to more frequent blogging. 

I loved the handmade brochure and had to buy one as a souvenir - it is even handbound with local wool.  Just perfect!

Last minute top speed knitting

I really shouldn't be taking the time to blog tonight as I'm on a mission. My friend plays for the West Coast Trojans, an American Football team, and we are hoping to go to their match tomorrow afternoon (Scotstoun, 2.30pm, if anyone's interested!) but I have a horrible feeling it'll be cold.

So after finding some very reasonably priced Sirdar Denim yesterday on a jaunt to Hobbycraft, I thought I could get cracking on a big bulky warm blanket for the little one. I was inspired in part by flicking through the new White Company catalogue last week, as we were ordering new towels in the sale. I noted that the White Company handknit their big blankets in blocks - I thought about potentially buying extra wool to make up additional panels so we can use the blanket in future on A's big girl bed when the time comes, but then realised I need a huge amount of chunky wool sitting around like I need a hole in the head!

Anyhoo, here I am knitting up 8-ply yarn in a lovely blend of browns and white, in a huge basketweave pattern. I feel all zeitgeisty now as this lovely cushion just popped up on Etsy's front page. It's by Laurimuks, who is a fellow knitter right here in Scotland, her work is just lovely.

I'll be back shortly with the pattern for the blanket (my very own!) and some photos. I hope you are all having a lovely evening, and weekend :)

Treasury feature: slick pink

Another treasury, this time featuring the LAST EVER set of oversized grey and pink heart coasters. If you've had your eye on these, snap them up now, as I just sold a set earlier this week and these are the very last ones.

On your marks, get set, knit!

Wow, in just over 2 months' time it'll be the closing date for this years Big Knit! UK knitting magazine, Knit Today, has put its usual contributors to work on some fun new patterns for tiny bottle toppers. Including... Pss Beatrice's hat from the first of this year's Royal Weddings. Brilliant!

Time to get knitting - see Innocent's website for the closing date and where to send your completed hats.

Done and done

Just in time for the new arrival, the blanket is done and ready to pop in the post. Now all I hope is that the postman knocking doesn't interrupt any precious moments of sleep! My new nephew arrived last night, just as I'd opened the last bottle of champagne from our wedding, perfect timing!

Nearly there...

The blanket I'm working on for my new nephew (due any day) is almost there...

A day in the life

It's that time again, Claire has called us to action to produce another Day in the Life post. I took part once before, last February. Catch up with other contributors, Catherine, Marceline and Laura (amongst many others, it's even happening over in Brooklyn) and take part if you like!

3.55am Wake up to hear the battery low alert in the baby monitor. Plug it back in and amble dangerously back to bed. I don't really do half asleep.

6.12am Wake up again, this time it's the baby asking me to nip upstairs and get her. In the universal language of pre-speech infants. Which is loud and irritating so I drag myself out of bed in a bid to make it stop. We settle in bed and I spend the next half an hour keeping her away from my glasses, my iPod, my book and everything else that is on my bedside table.

6.42am I am relieved from crawl-preventing duties by my husband and nip downstairs to make coffee and milk. We have our drinks in bed while we watch all the latest from the Island of Sodor, where the trains are slightly more efficient than Scotrail and make it to their final destination without the use of a bus replacement service. Which was yesterday's special adventure.

7.52am I am showered, breakfasted and dressed in the lovely giraffe t-shirt I bought in Portland, OR on honeymoon (it still fits! it still kind of fits!), by coincidence, Phil has dressed Amelia in her giraffe t-shirt, and we head off to the childminder's farm, where Amelia is spending the day in preparation for my return to work next month.

8.10am I get the weekly shop in at our local supermarket. Included is a big box of Lemsips as me and the husband continue to shake off bad colds. In the middle of summer. I also buy six packs of Stoats porridge bars as I really admire the guy who set the company up in Edinburgh around the time I was graduating and moving on to big retail, and they are reduced to 49p for five flapjacks, with a use by date of September. Result! Interesting fact: we were going to have Stoats bars as our wedding favours if we hadn't found The Other Mousie to make pirate kitties for us instead!

8.40am Unpack the shopping, and a few scooped up random items from the car - including a handknitted baby blanket, and a toy owl I made on Saturday night. Tidy the living room, including putting away random bits of owl for future owl making purposes.

9.05am Race upstairs to get some details on an eBay item I'm selling that finishes in ten minutes, for a last minute question-asker. Race back downstairs to post the details on the listing, just in the nick of time. It is a sample size Clinique lip gloss and it netted me £1.74, from a person with 'giraffe' in their user name. Today is too giraffey by far and it's only just gone 9am.

9.20am I package up 10 items I've sold over the course of the weekend and fill out a proof of posting form. So far my day is incredibly exciting, so I go for a cup of tea and a sit down. I'm knitting a baby blanket for my sister with Rowan Calmer yarn, the same kind of yarn used in the blanket I made for Amelia last year. My new nephew is due to arrive any day so I'm not entirely sure why I started this yesterday and not six months ago but hey ho. It's a big departure for me with bright bold boyish colours, and I enjoy working on the first few stripes as the pattern unfolds.

11am I realise the time and consider leaving the couch. I pick up my laptop and impulse buy two sets of vintage fabric remnants from Etsy seller Rope, that I was eyeing up on Sunday. I make a treasury based around zines and coffee, and wish I could afford to buy all the zines on this list.

11.45am I realise the time and run upstairs to my craft room to finish off the last zine in the Answers on a Postcard series. I format the pages into PDFs and zap them downstairs for my husband to print off on the supercomputer. My printer upstairs needs new ink and I keep forgetting to pick some up.

12.47pm Time to make lunch and maybe dose up on another Lemsip. We're having chicken pasties with mash and gravy. Yum! After we've eaten I tidy up the kitchen and wait for my New York friend Sabrina to phone for a catch up.

2pm I settle down for a bit more knitting and a watch of the newish HBO series Treme. I'm up to the last episode having watched the whole first season in the last four days. It's a great programme and I definitely recommend it. Don't wikipedia it to find out more (like I foolishly did, when trying to check whether the location filming for Davis' hotel job was in a hotel I'd stayed in on one of my few weekend trips to NOLA - later on in the series the same hotel is used again and the front door and signage is shown, and yes it was!), there's a terrible spoiler that kind of ruined part of the series for me. One of my favourite actors (Steve Zahn - one of the cast in my favourite film of all time) is in it, and what's more, he sings! There's a great ensemble cast and separate storylines which occasionally interlink. And there is so much wonderful music in it, you can watch it while you work on a craft project and still get loads of enjoyment from it. If you've been to New Orleans, keep your eyes peeled for great location filming, like Preservation Hall, Cafe du Monde, Pat O'Briens, all the usual places.

3.30pm I start to think about finishing up what I need to do, like collect in the recycling bin (today is collection day and our bin is halfway up the street where the council workers left it), check my email for any more orders to send out, quickly write a new home card (from Dude and Chick) for my sister and her family, who are moving house this week as well as anticipating a new arrival any minute!

5pm and I'm home with the baby. We play in the living room for a while before thinking about dinner. Amelia has already had something at her childminder's house, but me and Phil are having her favourite, asparagus, with our dinner, so she joins us at the highchair with a few pieces of asparagus while we have an early-ish dinner at 6.30pm.

9pm and a bit more knitting later, I catch twenty minutes of a TV documentary about Orthodox Jewish people in my home city, Salford. The accents make me feel a bit homesick and I think about going to bed. Just one more stripe of the blanket before I go up with a night-time bottle for Amelia and hope for everyone to have a full night in their own beds.

Disclaimer: I cheated and wrote about Monday because Tuesday my cold turned into the flu and I thought that 10am napped, 11am drank lemsip, 12noon napped through lunch, 2pm more lemsip and a scone because I couldn't face cooking 4pm napped etc was a bit dull

Now here's something I never knew about

The BBC has picked up this blog on its Open Country page. I'm an avid Radio 4 listener and blogged about one of their programmes which discussed the decline of Fair Isle knitting last summer when I was a pregnant insomniac.

Thanks, Statcounter, for bringing this to my attention - I've had visitors from all over the world since being featured there! Follow the link to find other bloggers talking about Fair Isle knitting and other issues discussed on Radio 4, as well as listen to the original programme.

Ysolda Teague

Reading the latest edition of the alumni magazine from Edinburgh University, I discovered that knitwear designer Ysolda Teague studied on the same course as me! She graduated with her MA in English Literature 8 years after I did, however, but I too remember knitting in my lectures while no doubt my fellow students thought 'who's that granny over there?'.

I had completely forgotten about the option to study printing and making books as part of the course - tutorials held deep in the basement of the library. My own degree was combined with French, so I had fewer options to choose from, but my favourite module was 20th Century Feminist Fictions - we watched and critiqued the Alien films, great fun! As part of my French course I studied the linguistic development of babies and children, so it was a pretty broad brush approach to each subject. And of course Edinburgh was a wonderful place to live, work and study.

To find out more about Ysolda Teague, visit her online at http://www.ysolda.com/ - there are PDF patterns to buy and download for free, too. Unfortunately it looks like they are all knitted in the round, which I can't do, and you have to go through the knitty sign up process to access the free patterns, but fun to look all the same.

Sneak peek on Christmas presents

Now that Amelia is starting to nap a little bit more consistently, I'm getting the chance to finish off projects I started ages ago.

Without giving too much away, this Christmas present needs buttons... but which set?

These vintage buttons from Canada look like teeny little olives.. too cute!

But I like the contrast of the green yarn and these fawn-coloured flower pattern buttons...

Or these shiny pale green beauties, which I'm a little reluctant to say goodbye to just yet...

What do you reckon?

Recommended reading

I really enjoy being connected to other crafty types via Twitter. It's a great resource for finding useful information, and the ability to bookmark, or 'favourite' tweets is a feature I use on a daily basis.

Here are some links which I thought might be useful to share:

via @designsponge/@metropolismag: cool site that lets you find info on individual buildings in your area (architecture + design-wise) http://bit.ly/djuqnK

via @thelifecraft KNITTERS! Are you capable of designing a hat? Have you seen this competition in aid of Mencap? http://www.mencap.org.uk/page.asp?id=15496
closing date: 31 August

via @justforfunhmn For you ladies (or gents) who cross-stitch, here is an online Celtic alphabet chart generator: http://bit.ly/a3FQSh

via @wildcatdesigns Useful, detailed blog post on calculating yarn requirements for a knitted garment http://www.kristentendyke.com/blog/081210.php

and also via @wildcatdesigns Check out the Edinburgh Festivals 2010 Craft Trail map! http://moourl.com/edcraftfest2010

I also stumbled across a couple of blogs I had to share: the first being a post about the most amazing party ever over at My Life My Loves: and the second being the home of this weekend's featured seller over on Etsy, Aunt June, who blogs over at http://www.myauntjune.com/ I couldn't resist picking up some of this fantastic fabric for a new project that I am very very excited about, and Lauren, who runs the shop, is a complete doll. I wasn't surprised at all that her blog was funny and sweet and bursting with colour and ideas.

The dying art of Fair Isle

Photo courtesy of selfsufficientish.com

It's funny what you can find out when you get up VERY early in the morning. Like today, when I caught a fascinating documentary about Fair Isle this morning, on Radio 4.

Fair Isle knitting, as a technique, originated in and has been important to the economy of the Northern Isles for generations. Its links with Shetland wool production, and the skill level involved, mean that its status has long been protected so that the tradition can continue. The documentary I heard, which you can listen to via this link, was prompted by the news that knitting will no longer be taught in local schools.

An interesting argument that was put forward by one of the Fair Isle knitters was that garments produced in this specialised and traditional way should be granted Fair Trade protection. To produce a jumper at around minimum wage levels would incur a price tag of around £700. This provoked a discussion about the challenge of educating the wider public on the pricing of traditional skills, whether knitting should be left to re-emerge simply as a hobby or gifting skill, or whether artisans should expect to have to take another type of part time work in order to subsidise the production of traditional garments. These are things I think about all the time when I'm knitting, so I was delighted to hear it voiced on national radio. It's only a shame that it was discussed shortly after 6am, when anyone with a choice in the matter is still catching up on sleep.

Treasury roundup

I've been featured in two lovely treasuries recently - themed Spring Chicken and Teenie Weenie - both over in Treasury East on Etsy.com

Huge thanks to Little Nester and Yellowee. Just click here to get your hands on a spring chick or mini envelopes from the Girl Industries etsy shop.

Updated to say: look at this nifty little trick from our friends at etsy - just click to find all the recent treasuries I've been featured in: www.etsy.com/treasury/search/girlindustries

Fellow etsians can search for their own featured items by swapping out your shop name at the end of the web address.

It's done!

I actually finished this last week, but I've had a hectic time with midwife, doctor and hospital appointments, so my progress report has arrived a little bit late.

Here it is against the backdrop of our brand new sofa:

I really enjoyed making this blanket, but I did stop for a moment to dwell on how much it might cost me to make and sell them... With 24 hours' work (I did have a sore back, so was possibly going at a slower rate than usual) and £42 worth of yarn, and of course all the overheads involved, and P&P, of course, you wouldn't really be looking at much change out of £300 if I was going to indulge myself and pay a little bit more than the minimum wage.

Having said all that, I did find the blanket incredibly relaxing and rewarding to make, so I've started another one in a more crisp cotton yarn (from Rowan, again), this time in a pale pink colour which for some reason they saw fit to name 'soap'. I'm not sold on the whole gender-specific colour thing, and we made the decision not to find out whether we're having a boy or a girl until we meet him or her, but this is a lovely gentle colour and will totally work with the nursery we're putting together.

My husband recently finished painting the baby's room, which is still empty but for a Miffy toy, Phil's tool box and a pair of ladders. Some photos will be up as soon as it looks a little more presentable (and we're currently working on a 7 week deadline here), but it's a rich lilac colour, which should tone in with anything from beige to pink or blue. All bases covered!

Update on progress - I think I'm winning!

Update: Actually, I did win something! This lovely contest held by the Mayberry Sparrow. Hurray! You can get your own here, and as something of a frequent flyer with Corrabelle's etsy store, I can heartily recommend her.

A new project

I've been starting to think about packing my bag for the hospital, and one thing on the list that I didn't have yet was a little blanket for the baby. My personal preference is for traditional cellular cotton blankets, the type you get in hospital, they are so warm and durable. But, I am a knitter, and I do have something of an abundance of yarn, so I decided to knit up a cot-sized blanket in the next few weeks while I'm resting up.

Here's my progress from day 1 - I was hoping to get through a ball of yarn a day, but I'm working in my favourite stitch, moss stitch, which takes more time than a stocking stitch would. It's a bit cheesy, but I'm looking forward to giving the baby something I made just for him or her as a very first present. And what says 'welcome' better than a lovely snuggly blanket - in a tasteful gender neutral colour, of course!

For those with an interest in that kind of thing, I'm working in Rowan Calmer, a shade called Delight, which I would describe as a lightweight springy yarn with a buttermilk kind of colour. I'll keep you updated as I go! Because, you know, that way I'll get it finished.

Good causes

While I'm keeping my feet up and finding patterns hard to follow, I've been working through my stash and my odds and ends of wool and putting it to good use.

I started off yesterday afternoon with a ziploc bag full of scraps of yarn, and came up with these stripey and patterned hats for the annual Innocent Drinks campaign to help out older people.

Then, while taking a break on Twitter, Cat from Wildcat Designs pointed me in the direction of people who were looking for squares for a range of community and charity projects. So now I'm busting my stash in earnest, and hopefully spreading a bit of knitting cheer out in the world. Maybe I'll even get involved in the International Fiber Collaborative's efforts to wrap a space rocket in yarn!

If you're a bit of a knitter, like me, you have a few hours left to enter the competition over at the Glasgow Craft Mafia blog. And if you were taking part in Knit in Public Day on Saturday - I hope you had a good one!

Attention knitters!

There's a new competition over at the Glasgow Craft Mafia website, to win a copy of In the Loop - a fantastic new coffee table/academic book about the edgier side of the revival in knitting. For a full review (by yours truly) and full details of how to enter the competition, go to the Craft Mafia blog before Wednesday 17 June.

New for Easter – Egg cosy kits!

A lovely little project for young ‘uns and more experienced crafty types alike are my new bunny egg cosy kits. All wrapped up in an upcycled egg carton, is everything you need to make these adorable little rabbits to keep your eggs nice and warm on Easter morning, and every day of the year. All you’ll need is a spare hour or so, and your own pair of scissors.

Each box contains a full colour tutorial with photos for every step, written and compiled by me, and formatted by the lovely Marceline of Asking for Trouble, who is nothing short of a genius at these things. You’ll want your eggs to dress up every single day. Once you’ve mastered the basics, why not make personalise your bunnies to match your pets? Or turn the basic pattern into yellow chicks or other easter-related (or not) creatures, depending on what yarn remnants you have available.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to knit on a clothes peg, this kit is for you! It’s easy as pie once you get going, and you can use the same technique to make coasters, placemats, coffee cosies, decorative trim for your gifts and parcels – all kinds of useful things. I’ll be working on a couple of tutorial PDFs to pop into the shop shortly, so keep your eyes peeled for those if you’re too late for Easter. I’d love to see any creations you make from my kits and tutorials, so drop me a line with your pictures, or leave a comment pointing to your blog or flickr pages.

Out of time, or not in the mood to be creative this Easter? Get some ready made craftiness with my hand knitted easter chicks.

Pay it Forward: Confession time

I've finally managed to get another PIF in the post all the way to Australia. I have to confess that I misplaced it just about the minute I emailed Amanda to let her know it was ready.

I made a little knitted purse, which is the perfect size for business cards, a dinky camera or a mobile phone - or anything else you can think of.

Here's a photo to show you what I made - this is similar to Nancy's PIF, too, which I was so keen to get in the post just before Christmas, I forgot to photograph it.

And here's confession time, number two. I'm still working on a successful lining so that Marceline's DS will fit snugly into the cover I made for it. I'll get there, I promise!